HEADLINES

The story of a young homeless man

Posted on: 05/15/2017 00:00

(By Chris Sharp) One of the reasons why I am increasingly working on published fictional stories instead of published essays is that a parable historically has a softer impact than a lecture. I might have written here a journalistic essay about the journey of a young homeless American man. But instead I have chosen one of my 24 stories about intervening angels from my new collection of published short stories on Amazon/Kindle, Every Kind of Angel. According to recent statistics by the Covenant House, more than two million American young people are expected to experience homelessness in the coming year.

The Gibson Girl was an Angel

His landlady had his eviction all ready and set for him.

“You’ll have to leave in three days. Here, I have a legal notice for you. Three days or quit, that’s what it says. That’s all there is to mention. If you come up with the rent in the three days, you get another month. Then I want you out of my house in any case.”

His landlady left him before he could answer. She had taped the “three days or quit” notice on the wall, above his chair where his cat sat. It didn’t look that much like a legal notice. It looked more like something she bought at Office Depot. But his cat had faith in him and paid no attention to the paper note hanging over her.

He stepped out of the house and took his 23-year-old health with him. For a moment he wished for a car so he could escape somewhere. But he had sold the car three months ago to release some money for rent. He had wished also he hadn’t had a fight over a year ago with his mother, that they had at least spoken some sentences together – even just a word or two.

Finally he wanted some other kind of family member around – like a father or someone. Outside his window was a man with a belt wrapped around him and the crown of a neighborhood pine. The guy probably made a decent income. But this man was no father. He was no brother.

He thought for a few minutes about what options he had left, with no money and no place to move. His mother wouldn’t take him in, based on how she talked. Regardless of how hopeless everything looked, his cat continued to have confidence in him. She rubbed against him as he sat on his bed, thinking about everything. “Do you realize,” he said, “if I go homeless, so will you?”

Since he always at least had a roof over his head, he stepped out into the town to prospect for the new homeless culture. It would just take a day. One day you would just stop and sit down in the back of some store. That was how you started being called a bum by everyone until you atrophied into the elements. It would be a little like being removed from your comfortable bed and moving that night into the concentration camp.